In June, Edsel will issueBrick – The Songs Of Ben Folds 1995–2012, a 13CD box set that takes a detailed look at the output of American singer-songwriter Ben Folds.
It includes all four Ben Folds Five albums (including 2012’s comeback album, The Sound of the Life of the Mind), all of Folds’ solo albums (up until 2012), live recordings, b-sides and other bonus material.

In this new set the first album (1995’s Ben Folds Five) comes with five bonus tracks, while the second (Whatever and Ever Amen from ’97) features 19 extra tracks on a separate CD. The third album from the original era – The Unauthorised Biography of Reinhold Messner – also includes a two extra songs and a radio edit.

Ben’s first solo album, Rockin’ The Suburbs was issued in 2001 and is included here across two discs (with 14 bonus tracks) and 2005’s Songs For Silverman only includes a couple of bonus cuts, but this is because most of the extra material from this era can be found on disc nine of this set Songs For Goldfish (at the time bundled with Songs For Silverman and sold via Folds’ website).

Supersunnyspeedgraphic compiles song from a trio of EPs – Sunny 16, Speed Graphic and Super D – and Folds’ final solo album Way To Normal is present and correct in both standard and Stems and Seeds variant (the latter sees the album re-ordered and remastered with much less compression).

In 2011, Ben Folds Five got back together to record their first album for 13 years. The Sound of the Life of The Mind completes this new Brick box set (which also features Ben Folds Live)

Brick – The Songs Of Ben Folds 1995–2012 includes a 60 page booklet featuring a brand new interview with Paul Myers and comes in unique ‘brick’ packaging.

DISC NINE: SONGS FOR GOLDFISH
1. In Between Days
2. Gone
3. Hiro’s Song
4. You To Thank
5. Weather Channel Music
6. Evaporated
7. There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You
8. Rockin’ The Suburbs
BONUS TRACKS
9. Radio Jingles for Tokyo’s Inter-FM
10. Side Of The Road (Studio)

DISC TEN: SUPERSUNNYSPEEDGRAPHIC
1. In Between Days
2. All U Can Eat
3. Songs Of Love
4. There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You
5. Learn To Live With What You Are
6. Bitches Ain’t Shit
7. Adelaide
8. Rent A Cop
9. Get Your Hands Off My Woman
10. Bruised
11. Dog
12. Still

BONUS TRACKS
13. Kalamazoo (E.P. Version)
14. Them That Got (Live E.P. Version – Recorded live
at The Avalon, Boston, MA, 08 June 2002)
From the motion picture Over The Hedge
15. Family Of Me
16. Heist
17. Lost In The Supermarket
18. Still
19. Rockin’ the Suburbs (feat. William Shatner)
(‘Over the Hedge’ Version)
20. Still (Reprise)

DISC THIRTEEN: THE SOUND OF THE LIFE OF THE MIND
1. Erase Me
2. Michael Praytor, Five Years Later
3. Sky High
4. The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind
5. On Being Frank
6. Draw A Crowd
7. Do It Anyway
8. Hold That Thought
9. Away When You Were Here
10. Thank You For Breaking My Heart
11. House

@Greg – I got that as well. I’m in the U.S. and ordered the signed edition. My email message was: “Estimated arrival date: July 16 2018 – July 20 2018”. Not sure if the differential was based on shipping to the U.S. or the fact that it included the autographed print vs. the standard “Brick” set.

Difficult to see, but I wonder what that ‘brick’ is made of? Just thin cardboard? Plastic? brick? Is it textured. Judging from the price I imagine it’s just shoebox-material with brick-picture pasted on? Though it would be nice if it were anything more fanciful

I just canceled my pre-order. I get excited when I see box sets that might be interesting to me, but then after I sleep on it I decide I don’t really need it. That is the case here.

Ben Folds Five first three albums were wonderful . Songs for Silverman was excellent. But his Way to Normal album was absolutely awful. I listened to it once and never listened to it again.
I did love his three EPs .

I think I have what I need, so if you want a signed copy get to Amazon.co.UK fast.

Saw him live last fall and he tore it up as always. Great box set here. Highly recommended. If you don’t want the full box and are curious about his music you need to pick up both the Whatever and Ever Amen and Rocking The Suburbs albums as a starting point.

I have most of this content but am missing a few of the bonus tracks as well as the Seeds CD. Can’t fault this collection at a really good price so pre ordered from Amazon with the added bonus of the signed lyric sheet. Thanks for the deal alert Paul. This site is costing me a fortune!

Turns out, after comparing tracklistings, I am hanging onto my 3 CDR’s of the “Fifty Five Vault” because there is more than a handful of demos/covers/live tracks/rarities not carried over to “Brick”, plus with those tracks in alphabetical order, it makes for additional interesting, fun listening…

This is the exact kind of box set I wish more bands would put out when their discography starts to get up there. As much as I love CD’s I always take a chance to offload my old jewel cases sitting on my CD shelf to have them nicely packaged in a tidy box set. I own every Ben Folds album despite always being kind of on the fence about him. I don’t think I need this much material but can’t refuse this box set at that price.

Is it really not being released in the US where he has a much larger fan base?

Looks that way…it’s on Edsel/Demon, a UK company, no US distribution…not sure if Ben controls/owns his masters, but if he did, and wanted it directly out in the US, he’d have to license it to someone else in the US…most of his stuff was out via Sony, so if they own the rights over Ben, they would have to do their own set…which would not be nearly as good or comprehensive as this “Brick”… Just sayin’

Great value. Would have loved a Hi-Res Blu-ray but truly a great value. Page, McCartney, Waters, Henley, Ferry, etc. take note. I think this “brick” packaging should be required on every overly compressed reissue. I’m hopeful this will be the un-brickwalled “brick”

Signed print copy duly ordered! Like others I have the majority of the content but it’s nice to replace some digital stuff with a physical format. Not everything, but I have the Best Imitation 3CD set and the Fifty-Five Vault digital box, so the gaps will be plugged. Cheers for the heads-up, Paul :)

This pretty much covers it, Larry, apart from the odd live cut or alternate mix. Strange that Over The Hedge is here in full but no other soundtrack work. Also House has been appended to The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind but not Stumblin’ Home Winter Blues. Just me nit-picking, though… it hasn’t stopped me ordering it!

It’s a fun song about a girl losing it at a company Christmas party…one thing about Ben…like Miles Hunt from the Wonder Stuff, he has a mean, vindictive, wisearse sense of humour, which in his hands is fun/funny, while in lesser hands would be deemed just mean and obnoxious…oh and he’s got the musical chops and tuneful songwriting to back him up…this box will be great fun…

Does this include the tracks from The Bens EP (recorded with Ben Kweller & Ben Lee)…can’t see some of them here…I don’t know much about Ben Folds so maybe it only includes the tracks he was most involved with.

One of my favourite comments to ever appear on a hype sticker (I cannot remember the source and I don’t have the disc to hand) was on the first Ben Folds Five album. “The best thing to come out of America since Star Wars. You will never, ever regret buying this album.” I bought it without hearing a note and loved it. Saw Ben Folds Five in December 1997 (and again on the reunion tour) and I’ll be seeing Ben for the seventh time in a fortnight. And I never, ever regretted buying that album.

I saw this trailed on another site last week, and have been waiting for more details. According to the Amazon.co.uk site, it isn’t available for delivery to Northern Ireland (where I live) for some reason, yet I was able to place my order with no problem. I suppose I’ll have to wait until it’s released to see if I get a copy.

Well, I do have a lot of this already. But, the box looks great and with the exception of the patchy Nick Hornby collaboration, this compiles it all neatly into one place. And I snagged a signed copy too which is tasty.

Anyone know when Amazon take payment on pre-orders? I could do with them waiting a little while :D

Looks amazing AND affordable! I already own 99% of the albums and CD singles, but there’s still plenty of material on here I don’t have including his Christmas songs! I might have to offload all my original albums and replace them with this. But it’s missing the one Ben Folds album I still don’t own – Lonely Avenue. Also shame there’s no DVD, but then again I’d probably only watch it once!!

Well well well, isn’t THIS a nice surprise?? Ben Folds is quite the talent, a punky Billy Joel if you will…and his output is quite large and all over the place, releasewise…there was a 3CD anthology released some years back with a deluxe released digitally with like 50 extra songs to download, many of them rare…this Brickbox…how appropriate…looks like it gathers it all together with all the albums, both solo AND BF5…had to put in the preorder as soon as I saw this because Folds fans are notoriously hardcore, and this WILL go fast…I got one tho…yay me!!